Thursday, December 13, 2007

Oh, by the way, I hate Christmas.

I wrote this last year for LeftLion. The full version, featuring illustrations by the ridiculously gifted Rob White, can be found here. A surprising amount of it is out of date (particularly the moaning about the Square being out of bounds, so you couldn't snog a Sharon up against a lion or watch a pisshead attempt to climb the Xmas tree), so here's the abridged version...

1. YOUR SHIT OFFICE PARTY THAT ALREADY HAPPENED IN NOVEMBERAh, Christmas dos; the need to pretend that we’re well liked, the chance to ride the office bike. And there’s no finer indication of the status of your company than the office party. If you’re rolling about pissed out of your eyeballs in World Service or Harts the day before you break up, well done; your future is secured, and you’ll probably be doing the same thing next year. If you’ve spent your Xmas piss-up upstairs at the Peacock long before the first horrible lights went up, rest assured that your company is firmly up Arsehole Street, there’ll be no bog roll in the office lavs by January, and you’ll have to wipe your arse on your own king skins.

2. THAT BLOKE ACROSS THE ROAD WHO PUT THE ENORMOUS SANTA LIGHTS ON HIS HOUSE AS SOON AS GOOSE FAIR FINISHED

He’s not the only one on the estate doing through the same old depressing, turd-polishing motions, but Christ on a crisp packet! It’s so gargantuan that Rudolf’s head fills up his bedroom window, and he keeps it on all night. I dunno about you, but if I was his missus and all I could see at night was a massive neon reindeer head staring at me through the curtains, I’m not going to be massively up for a seeing-to.

3. SHOPPING CENTRES PUTTING UP DECORATIONS IN NOVEMBER

Bastards.

4. MEATHEADS AND SLAPPERS IN TOWN WEARING SANTA HATS

It makes that random, unprovoked kicking outside Re-Flex so much more jovial, doesn’t it? A shame the staff at A&E don’t wear the full gear, put you on their knee, and say “Ho ho ho! I know a little boy who wants a splint and some painkillers!”

5. THE ONE TIME OF THE YEAR WHERE YOU HAVE TO GO TO FUCKING ARGOS

It’s like signing on, but coming away with a Darth Vader helmet instead of a Giro.

6. THE COUNCIL HOUSE LOOKING LIKE IT WAS BOUGHT OFF QVC WHEN SOMEONE WAS REALLY PISSED, FOR A LAUGH

Ugh.

7. CLAIRE SWEENEY IN THE LOCAL PANTO EVERY BASTARD YEAR

She is, isn’t she? Has she got Poloroids of the management of the Theatre Royal going dogging or summat?

8. THE LAST FRIDAY IN TOWN BEFORE THE STUDENTS GO HOME

Carnage.

9. THE FRIDAY AFTER THAT WHEN EVERYONE ELSE KNOCKS OFF WORK

Even worse.

10. THOSE LITTLE ROBOTIC FUCKERS IN VICCY CENTRE

Don’t they get on your tits? I swear I’m gonna jump over the barrier and twat one of ‘em on the snot-box this year. Waving at me like he fucking knows meh.

11. THE INFLATABLE SNOWMAN ON THE PUB ROOF THAT HAS ALREADY DEFLATED

…so it looks like some youth has hrown the world’s biggest spent Johnny up there.

12. IN FACT, ANY PUB THAT DOES DECORATIONS APART FROM THE OLD GENERAL IN HYSON GREEN

For 11 months of the year, they have a dummy of an old bloke in military uniform in the upstairs window. In December, they chuck a Santa outfit over it. Simple. Subtle. Timeless.

13. CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS BOUGHT FROM POUND SHOPS

Hey, I’ll have nowt said against pound shops, but a bloke on our estate has got these Santa poster-things that say “HO HO HO” in his window. Problem is that from the outside, it reads “OH OH OH”, which makes it sound like he’s having phone sex.

14. CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS, FULL STOP.

I once had the only Xmas decco worth a toss; a massive cardboard box made to look like a prezzie, full of little polystyrene balls and a vacuum attachment. You put your tree in it, clipped a little pipe to the spine, and turned it on. Result – a never-ending cascade of ‘snow’. All the others aren’t worth the steam off my, yours or anyone else’s piss.

15. HAVING TO BUY CHRISTMAS CARDS WHEN PEOPLE WHO YOU DON’T GIVE A TOSS ABOUT SEND YOU ONE

Look, this is why e-mail was invented. Stop it. Now.

16. THE FACT THAT YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO BRING YOUR GAMES IN ON THE LAST DAY OF WORK

Not fair.

17. PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING ON HOLIDAY FOR CHRISTMAS BRAGGING ON ABOUT HOW THEY’RE GOING ON HOLIDAY FOR CHRISTMAS

Stop banging on about it, you sensible, rational, cleverer-than-me bastards.

…and all they know is ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’. Come back when it is Christmas, you nob-ended teet-sucking vermin. Better still, die..

19. SOME TWAT OFF THE X FACTOR INEVITABLY BEING THE CHRISTMAS NO.1

The battle for the Christmas No.1 used to be mint. Now it’s decided by a glorified karaoke competition. Kill Louis Walsh.

20. SHITTY CHRISTMAS MUSIC EVERYWHERE

We’ll have a Rock ‘n Roll Christmas - Christmas Rock n’ Roll…Wish I was at home for KER-RISTMASSS…And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?...Simply. Having. A wonderful Christmas time...And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom…how the fuck do people in Morrisons put up with this shit without opening a vein?

21. GOING BACK HOME TO YOUR MAM’S TO DISCOVER YOUR OLD BEDROOM IS NOW THE FREEZER ROOM

Seriously, if you’d have been run over in the street when you were seven, they would have left everything untouched. Because you didn’t, the minute you leave they chuck away the bed you lost your virginity on and replace it with a chest freezer containing half a dead cow. And where’s me back copies of 2000ADs and every single Forest programme during both European Cup runs? In a canvas bag in the shed with the leaky roof? Skill!

22. YOUR MAM HAVING HER ANNUAL NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Obviously, Mams are skill. But why are they the only ones who give a fuck about Christmas when everyone else can’t be arsed with it? Why do they feel the need to peg it down to Tescos at five in the morning to buy more food that’ll be chucked away?

23. TAXI DRIVERS TAKING THE PISS

Rip-off merchants at the best of times – utterly larcenous at Christmas. They might as well just take your wallet, shove their cocks through the fold, and have sex with it. Their rampant greed inevitably leads to…

24.TOWN BEING ABSOLUTELY DESERTED ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Once upon a time, this was the best night of the year for getting mashed in town. No hassle, everyone in a good mood, no trouble whatsoever. Nowadays, everyone’s been on a works do, a departmental do and a go-out-with-your-mates-who-are-back-in-town do, your drinks cabinet is groaning, and the last bus home is at 10pm. Consequently, you can walk from one end of town to the other on the 24th and you’ll see 100 people and a mile-long queue of fucked-off cabbies.

25. A GREY CHRISTMAS

I miss proper snow. Even the Meadows looked nice in the snow.

26. SELECTION BOXES

A quid’s worth of chocolate if you go to the right all-night garage, bundled up with some game that no-one ever plays, that become available at the exact moment that you’ve already eaten so much chocolate that you could easily shit a Mars bar. Still, it’d be a shame to let it go to waste…

27. HAVING TO GO TO THE LOCAL PUB TO GET OUT OF YOUR MAM’S WAY

You wouldn’t be seen dead in the place on the other 364 days of the year, because you probably would be, but on this day it’s heaving. Particularly if there was a machete attack in a nearby pub the night before. So you sit there for a couple of hours trying to squeeze a conversation out of your miserable, face-like-a-smacked-arse Dad. The only bit of entertainment on offer? Counting the new and manky market jumpers at the bar. Oh, and…

28. SEEING PEOPLE FROM SCHOOL ONCE A YEAR AND HAVING TO LIE ABOUT HOW ACE YOUR LIFE IS

We’ve all done it, haven’t we?

29. YOUR DAD IN A PAPER HAT, PISSED OUT OF HIS SKULL, BANGING ON ABOUT JESUS WHILST DUMPING HALF A POT OF PEPPER ON HIS TURKEY

An annual ritual at our house during Christmas dinner, usually just after the end of the prawn cocktail and just before the first wine glass gets broken. As he eloquently puts it, “Everyone’s forgotten about the cunt”. The way he goes on, he makes it sound like the Son of God is on his own in a bungalow in Arnold, thinking to himself “Fucking hell, I’m 2,007 years old today…and what have I done with me life?”

If you’ve still got your grandparents, it’s a traditional part of the day. If you haven’t, it’s some right old trout banging on about arse all. What’s on next? Oh, for fuck’s sake…

32. THE BOND FILM

Ever since we realised that all British spies really do is lose laptops on trains and make up excuses for America to bomb Muslim kiddies, the magic has gone.

33. ALL CHRISTMAS TELLY, IN FACT

Jesus, I can remember the days when the entire country had a collective orgasm when the Xmas TV and Radio Times came out. Nowadays you either spend Christmas night round your mates (providing they live within walking distance, or you’ve taken out a loan to pay the cab fare), in the spare room with a laptop and a tray of sausage rolls, or on the settee in an alcoholic stupor with a tin of Sensations on your rapidly expanding gut.

34. THE REALISATION, JUST BEFORE YOU GO TO BED, THAT TWO MONTHS OF RELENTLESS MARKETING, HUNDREDS OF POUNDS YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO SPEND, AND MILLIONS OF MAN-HOURS SPENT RUNNING AROUND LIKE A BLUE-ARSED FLY HAVE RESULTED IN A) AN INTERRUPTED LIE-IN, B) A SESSION IN A RUBBISH PUB, C) SOME PANTS THAT DON’T FIT YOU, D) A GLORIFIED SUNDAY DINNER, E) A ROW WITH YOUR DAD OVER RELIGION, AND F) AN UTTERLY, UTTERLY, UTTERLY FUTILE EXPERIENCE

Just like last year. And next year.

35. BOXING DAY

Ooh, let’s go shopping again, seeing as been two whole fucking days since we’ve dragged our arses through Broado.

36. ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL TO DO FOR A WEEK APART FROM MORE SHOPPING

And eating. And drinking.

37. THE BITTERSWEET MOMENT WHEN YOU ACTUALLY REALISE YOU’RE DESPERATE TO GO BACK TO WORK

Even if you happen to work at a maggot factory, or are a prostitute on Forest Road.

38. THE EXTRA STONE YOU PUT ON OVER CHRISTMAS

Nuff said.

39. NEW YEARS EVE BEING ONLY SIX DAYS AWAY FROM CHRISTMAS

Don’t get me wrong, New Years Eve is skill – in fact, it’s the all-denomination winter solstice piss-up that is everything Christmas should be. But why does it have to be so close to the rubbish one? Let’s move it to the middle of January, or replace Valentines Day with it, when we’ve all got a bit more cash and could do with a doss off work.

40. MAKING YOUR NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS AND REALISING THAT THEY’RE THE SAME ONES AS LAST YEAR

This year, I vow to; stop going into Yates and beating people up, calm down on the ‘shagging women every night’ thing, be a bit less ostentatious about my expensive house and car, and being a compulsive liar.

41. NEW YEAR’S DAY

The dullest day of the year. Even Bono had a cob-on about it, and although I think he’s a hateful twat, I'm inclined to agree.